The Excursion

Frances Brooke. edited by Paula R. Backscheider and Hope D. Cotton

Publication Year: 2015

Frances Brooke (1724-1789), journalist, translator, playwright, novelist, and even co-manager of a theater, was described as "perhaps the first female novel-writer who attained a perfect purity and polish of style." Today, Brooke is known primarily for The History of Emily Montague, one of the earliest novels about Canada, where she lived for a number of years. But it is her third novel, The Excursion, that is an important example of the fashionable and popular English novels of the late 1770s.

Written for the very audience it portrays, this novel introduces the heroine, Maria Villiers, to London's "gentle" society and its glittering pastimes. Brooke drew upon the English courtship novel in the tradition of Eliza Haywood, Henry Fielding, and Frances Burney for her novel's overarching plot structure. But instead of concentrating on Maria's romantic adventures, she experiments with unusual treatments of subplots and unconventional characters.

The most interesting aspect of her story is the development of Maria's ambition to win fame and fortune as a writer; it is one of the few portraits of a woman with literary ambitions by an early woman writer. Brooke's wry narrative voice foreshadows that of Jane Austen.

The editors' introduction places The Excursion firmly in the tradition of the English novel, provides a fresh biography of Brooke, and brings together the most important eighteenth- and twentieth-century criticism of Brooke's work.

The second volume in the series Eighteenth-Century Novels by Women, The Excursion contributes to our understanding of the development of the novel and offers a lively view of women's position in eighteenth-century English society.

Cover

Title Page, Copyright

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The heroine of Frances Brooke's The Excursion (1777) comes to London
with a novel, an epic poem, and a tragedy, which she believes the guarantee
of her fame and economic security. Brooke herself may not have arrived in
London in 1748 with her luggage stuffed with manuscripts, but before she...

Chronology

Note on the Text

Preface to the Second Edition

"I appeal to the people," was the celebrated form in which a citizen of
J. ancient Rome refused his acquiescence in any sentence of which he felt
the injustice.
On giving a new edition of The Excursion to the public, I find myself
irresistibly impelled to use the same form of appeal from...

The Excursion: First Edition

Book I

On a mild evening in September last, as the two nieces of Col. Dormer,
a gentleman of small fortune, in Rutland,1 were leaning over the terrace
wall of their uncle's garden, admiring the radiant lustre of the setting sun,
the mixed gold and azure which played on a rustic temple belonging...

Book II

I know not which, of two very common errors, most merits reprehension,
the thoughtless passion of young ladies in the country to see London, or
the short-sighted wisdom of their papas and mammas, such I mean whose
situations give them the power to comply, in neglecting...

Book III

It was one of those clear frosty mornings in January*, which make us often
forget the season, the blue serene almost rivaling the brightest tints of a
summer sky, when Col. Dormer and Louisa, impatient to hear from their dear
wanderer, drove, as soon as they had breakfasted...

Book IV

F) oor Maria! This journey was a stroke she did not expect. How give wings
to the lazy-footed time? How pass the tedious hours of Lord Melvile's absence
from London?
Lady Hardy came in, laughed at her gravity, and, though with great
difficulty, seduced...

The Excursion: Volume The Second

Book V

If Miss Villiers was elated with the sudden return of her noble lover, a
return which she, with great appearance of probability, attributed to the
excess of his affection, and his inability to live longer absent from her; she
was still more so on receiving from him the next morning a letter...

Book VI

When Miss Villiers rose in the morning, she found Mrs. Merrick in her
W dining-room waiting her coming, in order to attend herself, as she
sometimes did, during breakfast.
The grave air of this good woman alarmed her; she enquired, with the
utmost...

Book VII

Miss Villiers expected Lord Claremont's visit with an impatience which
will easily be imagined; but an impatience mixed with the most alarming
apprehensions.
He might not see her with the same eyes as his son...

Book VIII

If Mr. Hammond's wheels had been as rapid as his ideas, he would have
reached Belfont (for thither he bent his course) with the velocity of a spirit.
He arrived at this abode of tranquillity about twelve on Monday morning,
and found Col. Dormer hanging with...

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